A combination of the writer-learns-to-clown/cobble/farm genre and that newish breed, the personal-meat-journey, with the subgenre that might be called the infidelity-food memoir (a venerable oeuvre pioneered by M.F.K. Fisher, advanced by Ruth Reichl and Judith Jones), Cleaving gives good blood.

Hank Williams, Jr., a big McCain supporter, brought his tremendous case of hat-head and vocal stylings to Missouri today to salute Sarah Palin's candidacy with our national anthem. Between Palin calling it "Missour-EE," Williams' rewriting of a lyric as "the dong's early light" and the way the MSNBC cameraman pulls…